Books by Brights

Dare to Think for Yourself: A Journey from Faith to Reason

Description

Dare to Think for Yourself is a personal account of one woman’s lifetime progress from fundamentalist to freethinker. Recounting her journey with understanding, humor, and compassion, she neither seeks converts nor endeavors to undermine anyone’s convictions. Her purpose is to challenge individuals to establish their own inspirational path rather than follow blindly someone else’s. It has been said that Dare to Think for Yourself will be an inspiration and perhaps a guide for those who have struggled or are currently struggling within a religious system that focuses on indoctrination and blind obedience. Hopefully, it will help some to break free of that prison of the mind that suppresses the need to question, to evaluate, and to examine beliefs that often defy rationality. Without malice, Dare to Think for Yourself challenges readers to analyze why they believe what they believe. According to one well-known author in the “Foreword” of the book, Betty Brogaard writes “in an easy, unpretentious style, almost conversing with the reader.”

About the Author:

Born in the Bible Belt of the American South, Betty Brogaard, even as a child, had questions regarding God and the Bible, which adults in her life couldn’t answer. At age 20, she allowed herself to be snagged by a male-dominated cultic religion. They seemed to have all the answers. There, she met and married a young man who became a minister in the cult. Primarily because of growing doubts about the organization’s teachings and secondarily because of the decadent lifestyle of some in leadership, the couple finally left amidst threats of eternal judgment and punishment. Betty continued to study various religions and eventually joined, with her husband, an orthodox church. She remained a member there for fifteen years (two years less than she had been in the cult) when she could no longer convince herself that religion holds the truth about things that matter. Years of continuous research have taken Betty from faith as a dedicated Christian to reason and a satisfying but nonreligious way of life. She, an avowed atheist (and now a Bright), and her husband, a staunch Christian, have been married for almost 40 years.